Two Sides, One Person
by liuli-xia
Summary: One was a dreamer who ran mazes and sought out adventures on a whim. The other was a creator and labyrinth maker, who trapped the prey in a never-ending and always changing maze. One a girl, one a woman; one a child, one a woman. Both the same and yet so different. Jareth/Sarah, one-sided Arthur/Ariadne (T for paranoia concerning slight implied themes)


**A/N:** So this is my first Labyrinth/Inception crossover, which I've noticed is a pretty small collection. Oh well. I got this idea while I was making brownies. I hope you enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own David Bowie of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sadly.

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Two sides of the same coin, they most definitely were. One was a dreamer who ran mazes and sought out adventures on a whim. The other was a creator and labyrinth maker, who trapped the prey in a never-ending and always changing maze. One a girl, one a woman; one a child, one a woman. Both the same and yet so different. That is what happens when childhood is left behind but… Well, it's different when childhood and adulthood are mixed. Because then, almost nothing is impossible.

She was plain brown hair, milk chocolate eyes, a smooth milky complexion, and a face that seemed so ordinary that anyone's eyes would glance right over her but if they paid attention, they would find her to be a striking beauty at the same time. She used her looks to her advantage as she planted the labyrinths that caught her prey, or that tricked their eyes into seeing what she wanted them to see. Time had been kind to her since her time as a Runner, meaning she had hardly aged but five years though so many more had passed. Technology was wonderful, she found, when it came to creating labyrinths and she planted all the information she needed to so that she could keep living and have no one question why she never aged anymore.

She now sat outside the university in Paris, where she was studying architecture, at least in this life. Really, she was just waiting for it to happen. She'd heard about Cobb and his situation through her professor, his father. So she researched him and began to place herself in all the right situations to catch her professor's eye to get where she wanted. And it had worked. Introducing herself as Ariadne, she played her expected role but really, she was excited.

She went back a second time, when it was just Arthur. He showed her the way to trick the dreamer and the subconscious, and maybe it would have worked but she had dealt with that before. Of course, he would never know that since she planted such a careful trail so that none of her "lives" could be traced to the other. Her subconscious hardly reacted as he created and twisted and destroyed the things in her dreams. While he didn't understand, he had looked past it because she had such innocent eyes that hid a deviously creative mind as her world shifted and changed and twisted beyond recognition and comprehension in mere seconds. When she smiled up at him, she knew he had forgotten all that seemed wrong.

When she joined them as the Architect, her enthusiasm for building labyrinths and trapping prey was unlike anything she knew they had seen. Even though she gave them the layouts and models, even they had trouble navigating her labyrinths. The hidden complexities and paradoxes she used were ones even Arthur hadn't known. When they saw her totem was the Bishop chess piece, they'd assumed she was a chess player but they were wrong. It was a symbol of who she was, moving against the set horizontals and verticals of the world, like she had in the first Labyrinth she'd stepped into. And when she went under with them for the job, she barely managed to hide the predatory gleam in her eyes.

In the first level of the dream, she felt _his_ presence, though it had been many years, and she had to hide the smile. She couldn't tell but maybe_ he_ was one of the team or was just there as an observer. Either way, she knew _he_ was there to protect her but it was unnecessary, while appreciated. Thankfully, the others never noticed the other presence. Then again, she had grown accustomed to feeling _his_ aura around her.

It was in the second level where she felt_ his_ emotions spike. Right after Arthur kissed her. Knowing Arthur would mistake it for something else, she smiled._ He_ was possessive as ever and she would probably pay for it later. Not that she minded, of course. Then she knew _he_ wasn't Arthur or Saito, or any of the others. Well, except for Eames. She wasn't sure, but she figured it was a safe bet to say_ he_ was not Eames either.

The third level had_ him_ worried, she could tell. Fischer's mind was on the fritz and, before the young man was shot, a warning was sent to her thoughts and she mapped out her plan in seconds. _He_ was worried, she knew, when she chose to chase after the young man in limbo with Cobb but it had to be done. She never left things unfinished._ He_ should know that by now.

Wandering through limbo, she felt_ his_ presence strongly. It was a comfort, though she knew Cobb couldn't feel it because he didn't have the connection that she did. None of the team had it. When they found Cobb's wife Mal, she could feel Fisher's presence just outside the room. A result of being a Labyrinth runner, she knew where everyone was. But she waited as Cobb battled himself. It was the sole reason she was here. Cobb was lost in his dreams and needed to sort himself our so he could truly live out reality.

Once he made his decision, she charged him with finding Saito before riding the kicks back to the first dream. There, she took the oxygen from Arthur, only slightly annoying how he seemed to always be right there where ever she was, and then swam to the surface. The man asked her of Cobb and she only shrugged when she told him that Cobb and Saito would be perfectly fine. She knew things about dreams that no one else would understand.

Then they were back on the plane and she was relieved. Soon, she would be gone, if only to occasionally surface in the world to check in on her family. She'd heard Toby had moved his family to L.A. so she figured she'd visit him. As she looked out the window, she wondered how much her niece and nephews had grown. She knew his wife, Lysa, would be as lovely as ever, since she was a former denizen of the Labyrinth. For that, she was grateful because she could be her true self with them, instead of having to assume her false identity with her relatives.

When the plane landed, she hurriedly gathered her things and left the plane; albeit in such a graceful and dignified way that the rest of the team could not comprehend and they knew that there was so much that they did not know, despite their research on her. Waiting for her luggage, she watched Cobb meet his father, her professor, and smiled. Her job was done. Then she felt eyes on her neck, and a corner glance told her it was Arthur. She chuckled to herself as she made her way to the exit, the point man following her.

Then she saw _him_, or rather his wild blond hair, in the crowd. And she ran like a mad woman, her poor luggage beating the ground. She dropped it mercilessly as she jumped in his arms and kissed him. Arthur had seen, she knew, when she felt her lover's arms tighten possessively around her waist as he let out a low growl in his throat. Slowly, he set her down on the ground again and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "It is good to see you again, Sarah mine. Come, let us go. Your brother is expecting us."

Arthur's head was a mix of confusion when he saw Ariadne jump into the arms of another man. He should have known about this, it should have been in his research but it wasn't. Now, he felt like a fool for falling for such a innocent woman. However, when the man called her Sarah, his eyebrows knit together. Arthur knew he was missing something, but he also knew that Sarah was nowhere in her name. Nor did she have a brother that he knew of. However, her response caught him off-guard.

"Jareth, dear, he is not expecting us for at least two hours. And I have not eaten for quite some time."

And then they disappeared into the crowd as Arthur wondered why the name Jareth sounded so familiar when it was such an odd name. Then the man looked back at him with a knowing smirk before he disappeared with Ariadne-Sarah. By the time Arthur was in his taxi and almost to his hotel, he had forgotten the strangeness of the brown-haired young woman and her lover, and they slipped to the edge of his mind.

There were times, when he went under, that he would see them amidst his projections and he wondered why. She was nothing to look at, really, and the man was a bit fantastical looking. Together they would wander through his dreams and send him knowing smiles before he woke up. Sometimes he remembered, but others, he just remembered a man's blind hair and a woman's plain face.


End file.
